13.8: Karin

I started the day with another hearty breakfast courtesy of Laili - a selection of cold meats, bread, porridge and coffee.

At 9.20 I got a knock on my door to say that Karin had arrived. Armed with my computer and some paper I went down to meet her. Communicating was tricky, in the end Laili wrote down what Karin was saying so I could translate it through Google and respond. This actually worked quite well and we were able to have a fairly reasonable conversation. Karin asked about my family, including my great grandmother Ella Brauer. I was able to show her some photos of my Omi, Arne and mum. Karin is quite hard of hearing, as she has had several strokes. In the end she suggested that I come over to her place for lunch and to meet her son, who speaks English.

At 1.00pm I wandered over to her place and was greeted by her middle-aged son Andre. He and his family were in Rõuge for the summer holidays. Karin once again very proudly showed off her masters games medals – I don’t know about the most recent years but when we last visited in 2012 she was still competing and winning gold medals at the masters games in cross country skiing. As a child, Karin and her family were deported to Siberia by the soviets in mid 1941 as they invaded Estonia. She was the only one to make it back to Rõuge, then aged in her mid 30’s. It makes one think how fortunate it was that our family was granted refuge in Germany, as we would have undoubtedly faced a similar fate.

After eating a few pastries, Andre showed me around their property. Karin lives in what was the family house, which was originally the Sauna. As I understand it, when she returned home, the original family home was being used as the headquarters for the local administration. Thus, she and her family had to live in the sauna house. It was, of course, quite extensively renovated over time and is a perfectly nice home. Andre has recently built a new sauna house and is in the process of building a gazebo. Their property is really beautiful, with a lake and stream running through. The family themselves stay in a new holiday house which overlooks the town lake. Andre and I chatted about life in our respective countries. He works for a company that produces fibre plastic for things such as manhole covers, guardrails, platforms and more. Apparently these products are stronger than metal and are corrosion resistant. After chatting for a while, we were almost ready to part ways. I was quite keen to get a photo of us all but Karen had snuck off to the shops to buy some grapes so we met her beside the lake and took some photos there. So, that turned out to be a really nice day. Hopefully one day Andre or some of his family will visit Australia.

Me, Andre and Karin

For dinner I went back to Ööbikuoru Villa and had a very nice mushroom pasta and slice of cheesecake.